EPILOGUE
結語
Long before the Air Force terminated Project Blue Book, citizens of this country and others claimed to have been abducted by strange-looking, but apparently merely curious entities, and taken aboard their disk-shaped craft. Even as far back as the fifties, respected citizens, including police officers and ministers, many of them shaken, had reported to authorities disturbing experiences where they had observed creatures in or near what appeared to be a space-like craft. Sometimes to support their claims, they pointed to pod marks and broken tree limbs, and they told of car engines that had died and then sprung to life. But they insisted on anonymity. The first publicized abduction, that of Betty and Barney Hill, remained unknown even to the abductees themselves until over two years after the abduction.
早在美國空軍終止「藍皮書計畫」之前，美國及世界各地都有人士宣稱曾被不明的、怪異而充滿好奇心的生物體綁架，並被帶上他們的碟形太空船。即使是在 50 年前，一些有聲望的民眾，包括警官及國家重要幹部，很多人因此都受到驚嚇，都曾向當局報告在太空船內或太空船附近目睹到類似太空生物。有時候為了證實他們的說法，他們會展示身上的莢形記號及折斷的樹枝，他們也會提到汽車引擎忽然熄火又忽然轉動的現象，但是他們堅持要用匿名的方式報案。第一件被公開的綁架事件是貝蒂（Betty）與巴尼．希爾（Barney Hill）事件，他們一直到被綁架後兩年才知道並說出了這段鮮為人知的綁架事件。
The Hills' experience had occurred on a September night in 1961, as they traveled toward home through a deserted stretch of highway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They noticed a bright light, seeming at first to be a star, that came closer and closer until it was huge, disc-shaped, and hovering only fifty feet from where Barney had stopped the car. He got out a pair of binoculars and approached the object on foot. Through the lenses, he could see clearly a row of windows, and behind them, six beings watching him. From that point, the Hills remembered nothing, except a strange beeping sound that seemed to fill the car as they drove off. When they arrived home, they found peculiar shiny spots the size of silver dollars on the trunk of their car; Barney had an unusual mark on his groin, and two hours had passed that they could not account for.
希爾事件發生在 1961 年 9 月的一個晚上，當時他們正在回家的路上，行駛在新罕布希爾州白山一處人煙稀少又漫長的高速公路，他們突然看到一道白光，起初看起來像是星星，當它越來越靠近時，就漸漸變為巨大的、碟形的，並在距離巴尼停車位置只有 50 英尺遠的地方翱翔著。他取出一副雙筒望遠鏡，並步行靠向目標物。由鏡頭中他能清楚地看到一排窗戶，窗子後面有六個人正注視著他。從那之後，希爾夫婦就什麼都記不得了，除了當他們走出車子時，似乎聽到車子裡充斥著奇怪的嘩嗶聲。當他們回到家後，發現在他們車後的行李箱裡有一個似一元硬幣大小且發著光的奇特斑點，另外在巴尼的鼠蹊部也發現一個不尋常的記號，而且有兩個小時的時間是他們始終無法解釋的。
［編譯者註：以上事件就是著名的「希爾夫婦被外星人綁架事件」。］
貝蒂（Betty）與巴尼．希爾（Barney Hill）夫婦
Then, the Hills began suffering inexplicable anxiety attacks and nightmarish dreams about flying saucers, until finally, two years later, they sought help from a Boston psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Simon. Under hypnosis, the Hills revealed a detailed story in which the beings, observed by Barney through the binoculars, had directed them off the road and into their ships, where they examined Betty and Barney, including a "pregnancy test," with a thin needle inserted into Betty's navel. While regressed, Betty alternately sobbed and spoke firmly. Barney screamed and trembled, "what do they want? What do they want!" And, "I've never seen eyes slanted like that!"
之後，希爾夫婦開始經歷無法解釋的焦慮以及一些關於飛碟的惡夢。到了最後，就是兩年之後，他們求助於波士頓精神病醫師班傑明．西蒙（Benjamin Simon）博士。在催眠的狀況下，希爾夫婦透露了一段詳細的故事．那些巴尼由望遠鏡看到的生物將他們引導離開道路進入他們的太空船，他們在那裡檢驗了貝蒂和巴尼，包括用一根細針插入貝蒂肚臍的“懷孕測試”。在催眠過程中，貝蒂一下子哭訴，一下子疾言厲色；巴尼也尖叫並顫抖地說：“你們要做什麼？你們要做什麼？”以及“我從未看過像這樣怪異深邃的眼睛。”
One night, three years after the first regression, Dr. Simon invited Allen Hynek to observe the Hills under hypnosis and ask them questions. The session lasted for an hour and a half.
Afterward, on January 5, 1967, Hynek wrote of his experience in a letter to Edward Condon: "I asked them to relive the episode, and they did so, talking to each other, presumably reliving the scene under total recall, including such little asides as remarks to the dog, etc. I have a tape of this, and there is no question of the terror in Barney's voice when he views his object through binoculars. Whatever it was, tangible or imaginary, these people were terrified. Your committee should hear these tapes." They never did.
在第一次催眠三年後的一個夜晚，西蒙博士邀請海尼克當場觀察希爾夫婦被催眠的情形，並問他們問題，整個過程持續了一個半小時。後來，在 1967 年 1 月 5 日，海尼克在寫給康登的一封信中寫下了他的經驗：“我請他們詳實複述一遍這一段插曲，他們做了並開始彼此交談，在回溯的狀況下讓記憶重現，其中包括了一些像是在狗身上作記號的小事。我錄下了整個過程，毫無疑問地可以聽出當巴尼由望遠鏡中看到目標物時驚恐的程度。無論那是什麼，實體或幻想，這兩個人的確是被嚇到了。貴委員會應當聽聽這些帶子。”但他們從未這麼做。
Twelve years after the Hill experience, Charles Hickson, forty-two, and Calvin Parker, nineteen, two shipyard workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi, were fishing off a dilapidated pier one night when a glowing craft suddenly appeared behind them, expelling three mummy-like creatures who levitated upright, floated them back to the craft, examined each under intense light, then returned them to the dock. Deputy Sheriff Glenn Ryder answered Hickson's call to the sheriff's office and picked up the two men. Parker was crying.
在希爾事件 12 年後，42 歲的查理士．希克生（Charles Hickson）及 19 歲的卡文．派克（Calvin Parker），（當時他們都在密西西比州的帕斯卡古拉（Pascagoula）造船廠工作。一天晚上他們在一個荒廢的碼頭釣魚時，突然有一架發光的太空船出現在他們後面，並走出 3 位像木乃伊的人物，他們能直立地懸浮在空中，然後將他們拉上高空進入太空船，使用強光照射檢查之後，再把他們送回碼頭。副警長葛蘭．雷德（Glenn Ryder）接到希克生的電話就趕到現場接他們，當時派克正在那裡哭泣著。
查理士．希克生（Charles Hickson）與卡文．派克（Calvin Parker）
"They convinced me something happened to them," Ryder recalled in an interview later. "Especially the boy. He was scared to death. There's no way he could have acted that out. He kept saying, "they're gonna come back and get us. They're gonna come back and get us. We gotta get outta here.' He wouldn't sit down. He was just standing up, shaking the whole time. Never would sit down."
雷德副警長在後來的面談回憶道：“他們使我確信他們發生了一些事，特別是那個無助的男孩，他害怕得要死。當時沒有別的因素會使他這樣。他不斷地說：“他們還會再回來抓我們，他們還會再回來抓我們．我們必須離開這裡。”他不肯坐下來，他只是站著不斷地發抖，再也不肯坐下來。”
Ryder and the sheriff interviewed Hickson and Parker for over an hour, then purposely left the two men alone in an office for five minutes, while a concealed tape recorder continued to turn. They expected to record Hickson and Parker snickering over how they had fooled two people so far. Instead, they heard Hickson say, "Calvin, you okay, hoss?"
雷德和警長與希克生及派克面談了一個多小時，然後故意將此兩人單獨留在辦公室 5 分鐘，並用一台隱藏式錄音機暗中錄音。他們原以為會錄到希克生及派克私下談論他們是如何愚弄了員警，但是他們聽到希克生說：“派克，你還好嗎？嚇死了？”
"Tellya," said Parker, "I'm scared to death. This evenin,' I like to had a heart attack, I ain't shittin' ya."
"I know," said Hickson.
"I came damn near to dyin'."
"I know; it scares me to death, too, son."
"I'm just damn near cryin' right now," said Parker. His voice trembled. "Reckon why they just picked us up?"
"I don't know; I don't know," said Hickson. "I'm telling you, man, I can't take much more of that."
"I'm just damn near crazy," Parker seemed to say to himself.
Hickson said, "when they brought you out of that thing, goddamn! I like to never in hell got you straightened out, man!"
"My damn arms," said Parker, "my arms, they just froze up, and I couldn't move. Just like I stepped on a damn rattlesnake."
"I've never seen nothin' like that before in my life," said Hickson. "You can't make people believe - "
"Did you see how that damn door come right open in front of us all of a sudden?" Parker interrupted him.
"I don't know how it opened, son," said Hickson, "I don't know."
"All I see was this here zzzzzzip, then looked around; them damn blue lights and them sonsabitches, just like that, they come out." Parker started to panic. "I gotta go to the house. I am done sittin' here getting' so damn sick right now; I ain't shittn' ya. I gotta go to the house."
派克說：“說實在的，我真的怕死了，我差點心臟病發作，我真是狗屎運。”
希克生說：“我知道。我也差一點嚇死，我嚇壞了，孩子。”
派克說：“我現在還心有餘悸地想哭。”他的聲音在顫抖，“他們為什麼會挑選到我們？”
希克生說：“我不知道，我真的不知道，我要告訴你，我實在受不了。”
派克似乎是自言自語：“我嚇得快瘋了！＂
希克生說：“當他們把你放出來時，該死！我寧願下地獄也不願意再談這件事！”
派克說：“我的手臂完了，我的手臂凍僵了，我不能移動，就好像是踩到了一條可怕的響尾蛇。”
希克生說：“我這一輩子從來沒有看過那種事，沒有人會相信的。”
派克打斷他：“你看到那個可怕的門是怎麼在我們面前突然打開的嗎？”希克生說：“我不知道它是如何打開的，孩子！我不知道。”
“我只聽到嘶嘶的聲音，我往四周一看看到他們出現，當他們出現時有一些可怕的藍光圍繞著他們”派克開始驚慌地說，“我必須去廁所，我在這裡已經沒事了。我現在很不舒服，這真是狗屎運！我必須去廁所。”
Hickson left the room to get the sheriff and Parker began praying. "It's just hard to believe ... Oh God, it's awful ... I know there's a God up there ..." he babbled. The last thing heard on the tape was Parker saying, "Why did it have to happen to me?" Then, Ryder and the sheriff returned and found Parker raking the walls with his fingernails.
希克生離開房間去找警長，派克就開始祈禱。“這真是很難相信的，上帝！真是嚇人，我知道真的有一個上帝。”他無意識地說話。在帶子上聽到的最後一句話，是派克說道：“為什麼它會發生在我身上？”然後雷德和警長回來了，並且發現派克用他的指甲在耙牆壁。
［編譯者註：以上事件就是著名的「1973 年帕斯卡古拉事件」。］
In 1975, the third in the trio of famous American abduction cases occurred in the mountain forests of eastern Arizona, just north of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. Returning home along an old logging road, a seven-man timber cutting crew encountered a saucer-shaped, yellowish glow not a hundred feet away. Travis Walton, twenty-two, riding shotgun in the truck, jumped out and ran toward the object. Suddenly, a bolt of blue-green light hit him in the chest, knocking him into the air and back ten feet. Mike Rogers, the crew foreman driving the truck, hit the accelerator. About twenty minutes later, the crew returned, but Walton's body was gone.
第三件是美國著名的三人綁架事件，發生在 1975 年阿帕契堡（Fort Apache）印地安保留區北方的亞利桑那山林中。一個 7 人砍伐小組沿著原木砍伐區的舊路回家，結果發現在不到一百英尺的距離有一個迎面而來並發出微黃光芒的碟形物。22 歲的丘比斯．瓦頓（Travis Walton）握著散彈槍由車上跳出去跑向目標物，突然有一道藍光擊中他的胸前，將他撞飛起來並於 10 英尺後落地。該小組領班邁克．羅吉斯（Mike Rogers）開著車子，猛加油門離去。大約 20 分鐘後又開回來，但瓦頓的軀體己不知去向了。
丘比斯．瓦頓（Travis Walton）
When Rogers and his crew reported the incident to the county sheriff's office, they found themselves suspected of murder, and the sheriff had each examined by a polygraph expert flown in from Phoenix. One of the questions was: "did you tell the truth about actually seeing a UFO last Wednesday when Travis Walton disappeared? All six answered yes. The examiner concluded that five of the young men had told the truth. In his formal report, the examiner wrote, "these polygraph examinations prove that these five men did see some object that they believe to be a UFO and that Travis Walton was not injured or murdered by any of these men on that Wednesday (5 November 1975). If an actual UFO did not exist and the UFO is a manmade hoax, five of these men had no prior knowledge of a hoax." The results on the sixth were "inconclusive."
當羅吉斯及他的同僚向當地警察局報告此意外事件時，他們發現自己卻被懷疑為謀殺者，而且警長也要求他們每一個人接受由鳳凰城請來的測謊專家的測試。其中的一個問題是：“上週三當丘比斯．瓦頓消失時，你說看到飛碟是真的嗎？”所有這六個人的回答都是肯定的。檢察官認為其中 5 位年輕人都說了實話。在他的正式報告中，檢察官寫著：“這些測謊檢查中證明這 5 個人的確是看到某樣他們相信是飛碟的物體，而丘比斯．瓦頓也不曾被他們之中的任何人傷害或謀殺，這是在 1975 年 11 月 5 日（星期三）發生的。如果飛碟不是真的存在，而只是人為的騙局，這 5 個人並不具備偽造的相關知識。”而第 6 個人的測謊結果則是：“不能確定是否看到。”
Five days after his disappearance, Walton reappeared, collapsed in a telephone booth at a small-town filling station. He said he remembered crouching behind a log to get a look at the glowing object, and that unconscious. He had awakened on a table onboard the craft, surrounded by humanoids dressed in brownish-orange, whom he pushed away, and escaped to the ship's interior. There, an entity appearing to be human found him and escorted him to a room in a much larger ship where two other humans, a man and a woman, laid him on a table and placed a mask over his face. When Walton again regained consciousness, he was lying on the pavement at the side of the road, watching the lighted bottom of the craft rise into a black sky. Walton flunked one polygraph exam and passed another.
在他失蹤的五天后，瓦頓非常潦倒且衣衫不整地重新出現在一個小鎮加油站的電話亭旁。他說他記得他曾蹲在木材堆後看著那個發光體，當他站起來時，他被一個“爆炸物”擊中而失去意識，醒來時他已在太空船的一張桌子上了，有一些像人的生物圍繞著他，他們穿著橙褐色的衣服，他推開他們並跑出房間，在那裡出現了一位具有實體人形的生物，並引導他進入一間較大的艙房。在那裡另外還有兩個人，一男一女；他們讓他躺在一張桌子上，並在他臉上蓋了一個面具。當瓦頓再次恢復意識時，他已躺在大馬路旁，並注視著飛船在黑色的天空中上升。瓦頓在一次測謊實驗中失敗而另一次則過關。
In the past several years, hundreds of people, perhaps thousands, have claimed either to have been abducted or to be in contact with space beings or both. And increasingly, these abductees and contactees are being thought of less as crazy people and more as a manifestation of a little understood but widespread and growing phenomenon. As a group, they exhibit no mental deficiencies.
在過去許多年中，有數百人甚至數千人曾宣稱被外太空人綁架或與外太空人接觸，或者兩者皆曾發生；逐漸地，認為這些被綁架者及接觸者是瘋子的人越來越少，而有越來越多的人表示有一些瞭解這種現象，而且這種增長的現象也在逐漸擴散中。這一些人並沒有精神上的問題。
The subject of a recent doctoral thesis by Dr. June Parnell at the University of Wyoming: 225 persons who claimed to have experienced highly unusual UFO sightings and/or to have been in communication with UFO occupants surprisingly were found to be above average in intelligence, assertive, experimental in their thinking, reserved, defensive, self-sufficient, resourceful, honest, and, most significant, devoid of mental disorders. Yet, although they suffer from no psychoses and often have good jobs, families, and respect in the community, some claim to hear voices inside their heads instructing them. But most of these stories go on further than the office of a therapist where the individual showed up one day unable to explain strange dreams, small incisions, or puncture wounds on his or her body and a peculiar loss of time associated with the chance sighting of a UFO. Many have had contact experiences, ones they cannot explain, and they tell stories similar to Meier's but have no proof, only bizarre and detailed accounts of abductions that have surfaced during hypnotic regression. The number of such claims has increased so dramatically over the last several years that a few sociologists and psychologists now feel the answer to the UFO enigma lies in their study and understanding.
最近有一篇朱．巴耐爾（June Parnell）在懷俄明大學發表的博士論文指出：有 225 位宣稱曾有過極不尋常 UFO 見聞及與不明飛行物外星人互相溝通的經驗，而令人驚奇的是他們的智商都在平均智商以上，有主見、保守、被動、自負、機智、誠懇，更重要的是他們都沒有精神方面的疾病。但是，雖然他們都沒有精神方面的問題，且通常都擁有很好的工作及家庭，在社會上受到一般人的尊敬，但是他們其中有些人卻宣稱常常在腦海中聽到一些聲音在指引他們，他們大多都是去找臨床治療師解決這問題；他們會在某一天因為不能解釋的怪異夢境，因為身上的小切口或小孔，以及因為對一段時間完全沒有記憶卻與看到飛碟有關而去找治療師。很多人曾有接觸經驗，但是他們不能解釋任何一件事，他們說了一些與邁爾類似的故事但是卻沒有證據，只有在催眠回溯時才會記起怪異而詳細的關於綁架事件的經過。此類事件的數目在過去這幾年中增加得非常快速，使得一些社會學家及心理學家感到這個 UFO 謎題的答案是他們迫切必須研究及瞭解的。
* * *
Attempting to understand the intense nature of the ten-year-old phenomenon of UFOs, Jung wrote in his essay Flying Saucers almost thirty years ago: "In the threatening situation of the world today, when people are beginning to see that everything is at stake, the projection-creating fantasy soars beyond the realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the planets. Our earthly world is split into two halves, and nobody knows where a helpful solution is to come from."
為了要瞭解已有十年歷史的 UFO 現象本質，朱格（辛斯塔的表兄）在他早期（約三十年前）的論文短評《飛碟》中曾寫著：“在飽受威脅的當今世界中，當人們開始認為每一件事都面臨緊急關頭時，具體創造出來的神話遠遠超過了地球的領域範圍與力量，而將之擴大延伸到天國及外太空，那裡有居住在各大星球的人類命運統治者與神明。而我們的世界也會劃分為二，而且沒有人知道由何處能獲得有效的解決方法。”
Jung foresaw the end of an era, the dawning of a new age, and flying saucers somehow symbolized the transition. Suddenly, a significant number of his patients had begun speaking to him of dreams in which inexplicable circular shapes descended from heaven. And he read of many others all over the world, who reported seeing similar shapes in a daytime sky. He postulated that if the will was strong, the awakened mind could conjure circular shapes that, to the eye, appeared as flying saucers, much as the palms of faithful Christians had been known to bleed spontaneously. And either these visions or the presence of an actual physical object or both could be the catalyst for what he called a "visionary rumor." But: why this sudden need for the masses to clothe unexplainable things in extraterrestrial garb? Perhaps the omniscient God of the prophets like Moses and Jesus, once so radical in the eyes of Greco-Roman paganism, no longer fulfilled man's spiritual needs; perhaps this intense, unconscious desire to believe in the existence of flying saucers signaled a wrenching shift in religious paradigms. But - and this is where Jung disqualified himself - the breakdown of religious paradigms and flying saucers in dreams do not explain the trained fighter pilot who chases a silvery fifty-foot disk confirmed on radar, only to have the disk suddenly accelerate to a speed of several thousand miles an hour, execute a 90-degree turn, and quietly disappear.
朱格預知這個年代要結束，並勾勒出另外一個新的年代，而飛碟則代表了這中間的轉變。突然之間，他的很多病人開始談論他們夢到無法解釋的圓形體從天堂降下來；他也讀了很多世界各地有關於在白天天空看到類似形狀物的報導。他認為當人們的意念非常強烈時，他們那被喚醒的心靈是可以召喚來那些眼睛看來是飛碟的圓形物體，就像是一些虔誠的基督徒的手掌會自然地流血一樣。而無論這些是幻影或者是真有實體存在，或兩者皆有，都可能就是他所謂的“幻影謠言”的主要原因。但是無論是宗教規範的瓦解與夢境中的飛碟，並不能解釋受過訓練的戰鬥機駕駛員所追逐的，在雷達上確定存在的、可以忽然加速到每小時數千英里再急轉 90 度並且悄無聲息地消失的、銀色五十英尺大碟形體事件。
After three years of research, I have concluded that UFOs exist: something we cannot explain indeed sails through our skies from time to time. This does not mean that representatives of extraterrestrial societies visit us, though there is some evidence to suggest that. I find it difficult to believe that anyone who looks seriously and objectively at the evidence - secret government documents that only recently have been discovered, the writings of and interviews with the coterie of scientists who have investigated the phenomenon, the reports themselves - can come away insisting the whole matter takes seed in the human mind. Though I have sampled only a small portion of the literature written by debunkers like Phil Klass and Robert Sheaffer, I find their arguments strained and unpersuasive, often more convoluted and difficult to believe than the sightings themselves.
在經過了三年的研究之後，我的結論是飛碟是存在的，它是一種我們無法解釋但確實飛過我們天空的東西，雖然有一些支持的證據，但也不意謂著已有外星人的族群曾拜訪過我們。要我相信任何自稱以嚴謹客觀態度去看待那些證據（最近才解密的政府機密檔、對曾經調查此現象的科學家所進行的訪問及報導，以及各項報案資料）的人，他們堅持說這整件事情只存在於人類的心中，我認為是很困難的。雖然我例舉了一小部分由像菲爾．克拉斯（Phil Klass）及羅伯特．西華（Robert Sheaffer）等揭發偽造事件者所撰寫的文章，但是我發現他們的立論是扭曲及不具說服力的，而且經常繞著問題打轉，使人難以相信。
On the other hand, I empathize with the scientist who refuses to become involved. Never has there been a more frustrating subject, where questions about and answers only shimmer in the distance. With our recently acquired knowledge of the origin of the universe, the birth-and-death cycle of star systems, and the evolution of life on our own planet, many, if not most, scientists now believe that intelligent life probably exists on other planets in our own galaxy. However, many of these same scientists also believe that travel in space is impossible: the galaxy is simply too vast. In winter 1986, I spent several days with NASA scientists who are engaged in the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) at Ames Research Center in California. The SETI people theorize that since alien civilizations cannot travel in space, they communicate with one another across interstellar distances with speed-of-light radio waves. The scientists now search for such magnetic waves in the galactic "neighborhood" out to a distance of a hundred light years. Meanwhile, things no one can explain still dart through our earthly atmosphere. Maybe someday, they will turn out to be, as many have suggested, merely a misunderstood natural phenomenon. In April 1984, Allen Hynek, in a column for OMNI magazine, even suggested that the seemingly solid yet ephemeral nature of UFOs might best be explained as "an interface between our reality and a parallel reality, the door to another dimension. Surely," he added, "we haven't had our last revolution in scientific thought.
另一方面，我也很體諒那些拒絕介入這個範疇的科學家，因為像這樣有一大堆問題卻只有一些不太明確答案的棘手案件是前所未見的。從我們最近才獲知的宇宙起源、星系的生命週期以及地球上生命進化的知識中，至少有許多科學家們現在相信在我們的銀河系中其它的星球上，可能存在著其它高智慧的生命。但是，也有很多這類的科學家相信在太空中旅遊是不可能的，因為銀河系實在是太大了。在 1986 年冬天，我花了好幾天的時間與一些航空及太空總署在加州愛姆斯研究中心（Ames Research Center）從事外太空智慧研究（Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence; SETI）的科學家相處。這些研究人員推論如果外星人不可能在太空旅遊，那麼他們彼此之間一定是透過光速無線電波來作星際間的溝通。科學家們現在正在這些離我們有一百光年的銀河“鄰近地帶”中尋找這種電磁波。同時，沒有人可以解釋的東西仍繼續出現在地球的天空中。也許有一天真的會像很多人所主張的那樣，證明那些都只是被人類誤解的自然界現象。1984 年 4 月，海尼克在《全球雜誌》（OMNI magazine）的一個專欄中指出，表面上看起來很實在，但出現又很短暫的 UFO 最可能的解釋是“我們的真實世界與並行的世界之間存在著一個介面，它是通往另一度空間的一道門，這是很確定的。”他接著說，“在科學的觀點上我們仍在演變的過程中，尚未達到最後階段。”
And where does Meier fit into all of this? I don't know. I would not call him a prophet, though he may be. I would not rule out impostor, though I have no proof. I know that if you boiled the story into a kettle, you would find a hard residue composed of two things: one would be Meier's ravings about time travel, space travel, philosophy, and religion; the other would be the comments by the scientists and engineers impressed with the evidence he has produced. I can't believe the former, nor can I dismiss the latter.
邁爾事件和這些事情有什麼關係呢？我不知道。我不會稱呼他是一位預言家，雖然他可能是，我也不排除他可能是個騙子，雖然我不能證明。但我知道如果你將這故事裝入一個酒罐加溫煮沸，你將會發現一堆由兩種東西組成的結實沉澱：一個是邁爾關於時間旅行、哲學及宗教的胡言亂語；另外一個則是一些科學家及工程師對於他所製造之證據的相關評論。我既不能相信前者，亦不能忽略後者。
"We can't prove the case is real," Lee Elders said to me in an interview in 1984. "We just can't do it. We can't prove that the metals are from a Pleiadian beamship, only that they are unusual. We can't prove anything. There are still things I question about the case," he added. "I don't know how to explain it."
1984 年李在一次會面時告訴我：“我們不能證明這案子是真實的，我們就是不能證實它。我們不能證明那些金屬是來自昴宿星人的太空船，只能說他們是非常不尋常的。我們不能證明任何事情，我對這個案子仍有許多質疑的地方，”他接著說，“我不知道該如何去解釋它。”
"It took us two years," said Brit, "to figure out you're never going to prove it, and you're never going to disprove it; it's just there."
佈雷特說：“我們足足花了兩年的時間才瞭解你是不可能證明或否定它的，它就是那樣。”
When I met Meier in the spring of 1984, I saw a tired man with a deeply lined face who walked with a shuffle. His bright green, once playful eyes, described to me by so many people, had turned weary, and the beard he had begun to grow in the summer of 1978 was now curly and half gray and fell nearly to his waist. Only forty-seven, he looked to be at least twenty years older. People at the farm told me he rarely slept, he had ghost pains in his missing arm, and he saw well out of only one eye. In the fall of 1982, Meier was in the bathroom early in the morning when he slipped and hit his head. A doctor diagnosed the injury as a severe concussion.
當我在 1984 年春天遇到邁爾時，我看到的是一位疲憊的人，走路緩慢，臉上皺紋很深。他那亮綠色曾經愛開玩笑的眼睛（很多人都這麼告訴我）已經變得很疲倦了；他在 1978 年夏天開始留的鬍鬚如今已捲曲半白，而且快要長到腰部了。他只有 47 歲，但是外表看來至少還要多 20 歲。農場上的人們告訴我他很少睡覺，他截過肢的手臂還會隱隱作痛，而他也只有一隻眼睛看得清楚。1982 年秋天的一個早上，邁爾在浴室滑了一跤撞到頭，一位醫生診斷為嚴重的腦震盪。
Meier still lives on the farm in Schmidruti, and people still come to visit. But rarely does he speak with anyone. When visitors drive up the gravel path, he may slip his index finger beside the sheer curtain in the parlor and peek out; more likely, he will continue to stare at the television screen. Others at the farm usually intercept the visitors and talk with them about Meier and his experiences and show them photographs from several large albums and then send them on their way. I was at the farm for three weeks in the spring of 1984 and again for two weeks that fall; in the spring of 1985, I lived in Switzerland for two months, traveling frequently to the farm. In all that time, I rarely saw Meier anywhere but on that sofa in the parlor in front of the television.
邁爾仍然住在西密魯提的農舍，而人們仍然不斷地去拜訪他。但是他很少和任何人講話。每當來訪者開車走上碎石路時，他會用食指移開客廳的窗簾，並向外窺視。更多的時候他會一直注視著電視螢幕。農場上的其它人通常會去攔住訪客，與他們談論邁爾及他的經驗，並將一些大相簿中的相片展示給他們看，然後把他們送走。1984 年春天，我在農場停留了三週，又在秋天停留了兩週；1985 年春天，我在瑞士住了兩個月，也經常到農場去，在那一段時間裡。我很少看到邁爾到處走動，他經常坐在客廳內電視機前的沙發上。
Though years had passed since Meier left the farm for a contact, he told me the Pleiadians still spoke with him and had even appeared in his office several times. But since it was customary for them to run things in cycles of eleven years, even that would end in 1986. "At present," he told me, "there isn't much happening in my head."
距邁爾開始離開農場去進行接觸已有好多年了，但他告訴我昴宿星人仍然與他通話，甚至有好幾次出現在他的辦公室裡。但是因為他們的慣例是以 11 年為一個迴圈，而剛好將在 1986 年結束。“現在，”他告訴我，“在我的腦海中發生的頻率已沒有以前那麼多了。”
I doubted Meier's story from the beginning but only for the typical reason: it couldn't be true. Two years later, out of frustration, I jerked open my file drawers, emptied everything into large cardboard boxes, and carried them into the basement of my office building. I could find no answers. The photo-analysis came up inconclusive because originals could not be studied. The unusual metal sample had disappeared. Except for the Intercep group, almost everyone I interviewed in the UFO community warned that I was wasting my time on an obvious hoax. But in Switzerland and again in Munich, I talked for days with Herbert Runkel, and I saw a sincere, curious, and intelligent man truly baffled by his experiences with Meier. His friend Harold impressed me the same way. With my translator Frank Stuckert, I spoke often with the people at the farm about their myriad and unusual experiences; I walked the sites in the hills, and I talked at length with the people at Bär Photo. I spoke with village administrators, interviewed neighbors, and explored the old Hinwil house from the basement to the attic. I found the alleged detractors Martin Sorge and Hans Schutzbach: Sorge now believed the contacts had actually taken place, though in a different fashion; Schutzbach remained convinced that Meier had faked everything, but after two years of searching, he had "found out nothing but a lot of ideas." He couldn't explain the landing tracks, photographs, or sound recordings, and still had no idea who even one accomplice might have been. He told me, "around Billy, the oddest things always happened." I met several intelligent and well-educated adults who rarely visited the farm but who told me their lives had been changed upon meeting Meier. One afternoon, as I sat out front of the farmhouse talking with Meier, a taxi pulled up next to the aviary, and out stepped two Japanese women who had seen the television documentary on the Meier story. They had flown twenty-two hours from Tokyo. As the older woman stood next to the taxi, both hands enveloped the stem of a red rose.
我從一開始就懷疑邁爾的故事，但是只是為了一個典型的理由：我認為它不可能是真實的。兩年後，由於不斷的挫折，我突然打開了我的檔案抽屜，清光了裡面的檔放入一個大的硬紙箱內，再把它送到我辦公大樓的地下室儲存，因為我實在無法獲得答案；相片分析工作因為不能提供原始的底片而無法產生確定的結論，不尋常的金屬樣本也不見了；除了監聽團體之外，幾乎每一位我在 UFO 圈碰到的人都警告我是在浪費時間調查一樁明顯的騙局。但是在瑞士及幕尼黑，我和藍哥談了好幾天的話，我發現那位原本誠懇、好奇及機靈的人，已完全因他牽涉進邁爾的經驗而感到挫敗了。他的朋友伯奇也讓我有同樣的感覺。透過法蘭克．史達可的翻譯，我常與農場上的人談論他們種種不尋常的經驗；我走過山丘上的現場，也曾和鮑爾相館的人交談了很久；我與村子裡的行政長官談話，拜訪鄰居，並由地下室到閣樓仔細地察看舊的欣維爾屋。我也找到了所謂的誹謗者馬丁．索吉及漢斯．休士伯，索吉現在相信接觸確實曾經發生過，但是是以不同的形態發生；休士伯雖然仍然認為邁爾偽造了一切，但是經過了兩年的找尋之後，他卻是“沒有任何發現，只是獲得了更多的想法”。他不能解釋著陸痕跡、相片或聲音錄音帶，對於誰可能是共犯他沒有概念，他告訴我：“圍繞比利四周的怪事經常發生。”我曾遇見過很多聰明並受過高等教育的人士，他們告訴我他們很少拜訪農舍，但是他們的生活也因為遇到邁爾而產生了改變。一天下午，當我坐在農舍前與邁爾談話時，有一輛計程車在農舍旁停了下來，走出兩位曾在電視上看過邁爾故事紀錄片的日本女士，她們是遠從東京坐了 22 小時的飛機飛過來的：年紀較長的女士站在計程車旁，兩手都拿著一枝紅色玫瑰花。
The scientists who had examined the evidence cautioned against premature conclusions, but the evidence impressed most of them. That, of course, does not make Meier's story real, but having experienced the setting in Switzerland, I, like others before me, could not understand how Meier could have created sophisticated special effects in his photography. Then, there were the sounds, metal, landing tracks, films, the explanation of the beamship propulsion system, all of which lent credibility to the story. Yet Meier's contrived photos of the San Francisco earthquake and his other outlandish claims tore at the credibility. He may simply be one of the finest illusionists the world has ever known, possessing not the power but the skill to persuade others to see things that did not happen and do not exist. Perhaps he has no such ability; perhaps beings on a much higher plane have selected him and controlled him and used him for reasons far beyond our comprehension. I do know this: trying to make sense of it all has been the most difficult thing I will ever do. Finally, I realized, as the Elders had years before, that the truth of the Meier contacts will never be known.
檢驗過那些證據的科學家們對於不成熟的結論作出警告，但是那些證據的確也給他們留下了深刻的印象；這些雖然不足以認定邁爾的故事是真實的，但從我在瑞士經驗開始，我也和在我前面的其它人一樣，都無法瞭解邁爾如何能在他的相片中創造出如此複雜的特殊效果。雖然邁爾的三藩市地震相片及其它一些怪異的說法降低了他的可信度，但是那些聲音、金屬，著陸痕跡、影片、太空船推進系統的解說又都使得故事極為可信。或許他可能是一位有史以來最好的幻覺大師，擁有能夠說服其它人認為自己確實看到不曾發生及不可能存在的事情的技巧。他也可能並不具有這種能力，或許在更先進星球上的生物，以一些遠超過我們理解力所能想像的原因而選擇了他並控制他、利用他。我確信；試著讓邁爾的一切合乎邏輯是我曾做過最困難的事，最後我也像愛德夫婦在數年前所醒悟到的一樣：邁爾接觸的真相將是世人永遠也不會明瞭的。
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